Rekelekt: March 2018

Spring break! We went to see Alice Cooper in Moline, then stayed with the Behans before heading out to Chicago for our vacation. The Alice Cooper show was nutso, you'd never guess Alice is 71 years old, the dude is incredibly spry and he puts on an entertaining show. It starts off with scary glowing eyes, and then pyrotechnics, a funeral procession, and then Alice emerging from the smoke. He does numerous costume changes, "dies" numerous times in numerous ways, and has some crazy talented musicians in his band. He keeps things moving all the time, it's almost exhausting to watch.

And lots of costume changes... During "Feed My Frankenstein" he was electrocuted and became a monster.

Each time you think the show can't get weirder it does. The "Ballad of Dwight Fry":

The guillotine:

Nita Strauss does some wild stuff with a guitar. She did her own solo thing in the middle that was pretty amazing, played with her hand on top of the neck for parts of it... lots of lightning fast tapping and whatnot. Fun to watch!

Then onto Chicago! We visited the Museum of Science and Industry, Willis Tower (still Sears Tower to me), some great restaurants, the Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum, Millennium Park, Edgewater, Grant Park, and did lots of exploring. We started off at the Museum of Science and Industry:

The U-505 German WWII sub is now enclosed in a new wing to protect it from the elements. It is a massive submarine and the only one captured intact during WWII. The capture of this sub was a turning point in the war because an Enigma decoder was found on board along with over 900 lbs. of code manuals to go with it. It allowed the Allies to break the Enigma codes quickly and intercept German communications, which provided intel about the Nazi army's next moves. The sub's capture was kept secret so that the German navy would assume that it had sunk and would continue to use the same codes. The plan worked for several months, allowing a significant amount of communication to be intercepted.

If you look closely you can see the bullet holes from the 6-minute firefight that took place leading up to the sub's capture. The sub's captain was up top when it happened and was shot in the leg:

There were only enough bunks for half of the crew, so they slept in shifts. At any given time, half of the sub's crew were asleep. The sub ran on diesel power on the surface and electrical power when it was submerged. The huge diesel engines were exposed to the interior of the sub which caused everything to stink of diesel. The food tasted like diesel, the air reeked, and at the end of each 90-100 day voyage all of the mattresses, pillows, and bedding were thrown out because it was all saturated with the stench of diesel. Here you can see that some of the crew bunked in the torpedo room and were kept company by live torpedoes:

The galley was about the size of a closet and was in almost constant use. That's the oven in red in the corner:

So many gauges:

I wonder if they actually used maps from 1919 in 1942?

Another example of spacious crew quarters. The ceiling was so low throughout most of the sub that the crew couldn't stand up all the way. For the sake of display, the floor has been lowered (and much of the mechanicals beneath it removed) to make it easier for visitors to walk through it:

The Boeing 727 that you can walk through and explore and below that the miniature city of Chicago with working trains:

We also rode on a flight simulator that demonstrated how wind currents work in a tornado. Don't eat before going on that one!

There was a huge steam locomotive right across from these cutouts, but now I can't find any of the pictures, so you'll have to imagine what it looked like while you check out the cutout pic:

Lots of nifty old planes suspended from the ceiling. This is a Junkers Stuka dive bomber from WWII:

Miniature Chicago with working railroad. Many of these exhibits were on display here when I was a kid:

This pendulum moves with the earth's rotation and gradually knocks over each peg:

An indoor tornado! There were levers that you can pull to manipulate the shape and characteristics of the vortex. It was 3-stories tall:

We had dinner at Giordano's before going to Willis Tower:

The tower is 1,450 feet tall, 105 stories, and was the tallest building in the world for many years. The two white antennas on the roof generate enough microwave energy to fry any living thing that comes close to them within minutes. The building is designed to sway with the strong winds coming off of Lake Michigan and usually you can feel the gentle rocking from the top. When we were there it was unusually still and there was no noticeable movement. The view from the top at night is surreal:

Do you see the building with the purple lights below? I took a picture of this building from the ground later:

The skydeck has three glass platforms that jut out from the building and you can walk out on them and see straight down! It's a dizzying experience:

Rose did some of her gymnastics moves out on the glass:

There's the purple building from the ground:

We ate at Berghoff's last time we were in Chicago. It was formerly a speakeasy (one of many) in downtown Chicago:

Parking is a hassle and it's so much easier to just use CTA passes and take the L and the busses. Less expensive, too.

The view from Grant Park the next morning:

Shedd Aquarium! I went here for my 10th birthday as a kid. For my 11th birthday I wanted to go to the top of Sears Tower, but my dad couldn't find any decent parking nearby, so he took me to the John Hancock Center instead. Typical dad move, haha. Dangit, if we can't find a good parking spot then we're just not going. For my 12th birthday I still wanted to go to the top of Sears Tower and fortunately we were able to find parking that time.

When we arrived a diver was IN THE TANK with the sharks, eels, and stingrays feeding them. A guide standing in front of the circular tank talked about the different types of animals in there and explained why so many predators in one tank don't all kill each other: they're well fed.

A few of the other exhibits at the aquarium:

Jellyfish are mesmerizing to watch:

Sharks!

This is about as close to the glass as I'm going to get:

A leopard shark:

The ocean by the lake... can you see the dolphins? The are really fast and difficult to capture in photos:

They're a little easier to photograph from down below:

One of them kept swimming up to the window where Emily was sitting:

It was really bright out after being in the aquarium:

We visited the Field Museum later:

The ancient China exhibit had a lot of artifacts from the 1100s-1200s:

Model of a Chinese dwelling from that time period:

There were a number of ancient scrolls on display as well:

A dragon on the top of an incense bowl:

In the animals exhibit there were more skeletons than you'd ever care to see, including an elephant and a whale:

The ancient Egypt exhibit had a 2-story tomb that you can walk through and it even contains stones with carvings in them from an actual tomb. There were a lot of mummies in it as well, some of them unwrapped. Kinda gross, so I didn't take pictures of those.